Know Thine Enemy: Bluebird Banter
What do you do today, if you're Nick Blackburn? Do you just try to work out a kink or two, and try to get a feel for each of your pitches? Do you use the Blue Jay offense as practice, and pitch them the way you'd pitch the Yankees? Or do you just pitch them like normal?
Probably like normal.
Toronto has a great offense, so if Nick can get us through six innings and keep us in the game that's good enough for me. Anyone who can pitch well against this offense can pitch well against anybody.
I'm not sure how you pronounce that name. But I did see a girl whose last name started with an 'R' and ended in 'ski', so it makes me think of her every time this guy's name comes up. Which is fun.
He induces ground balls on just over half of his balls in play, and he does it using his fastball-slider combination a vast majority of the time. Back on July 7th he pitched very well against Minnesota, striking out seven in 5.2 innings. The Twins did strike for a pair of home runs and scored four times off him.
Jays
TBA
Twins
Span, CF
Hudson, 2B
Mauer, C
Young, LF
Thome, DH
Cuddyer, 1B
Kubel, RF
Valencia, 3B
Hardy, SS